Mary Ellen Copeland, PhD, is an author, educator, and mental health advocate. Copeland’s work is based on the study of the day-to-day coping and wellness strategies of people who have experienced mental health challenges. It centers on self-help, recovery, and long-term stability. Personally, Copeland has experienced years of mental health challenges and has achieved long-term wellness and stability using these strategies.

Biography

Copeland's first experience with mental health challenges came from witnessing her mother's struggle with depression. Her mother, Kate, spent 8 years of her life, from the ages of 37 to age 45, in a state mental institution. She was diagnosed with severe and incurable manic depression. As a child, Mary Ellen was occasionally visited her mother in the state mental institution where she found her in a crowded room with 40 other women with severe symptoms with limited access to care of any kind. Even though the state mental institution was designed to manage, not cure, mental health challenges, against all odds Kate did eventually get well and return home, where Mary Ellen saw her pick up the pieces of the life she left behind building new and supportive relationships, returning to her career as a dietitian, and working to maintain her wellness.

Later in Mary Ellen's life, she too suffered severe mental health challenges, and was diagnosed by her doctor with very little information as having manic depression and immediately put on lithium

Lithium pharmacology

Lithium pharmacology refers to use of the lithium ion, Li+, as a drug. A number of chemical salts of lithium are used medically as a mood stabilizing drug, primarily in the treatment of bipolar disorder, where they have a role in the treatment of depression and particularly of mania, both acutely...

. Through the next decade Mary Ellen struggled and was hospitalized several times. Then one day she asked her psychiatrist

Psychiatrist

A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. All psychiatrists are trained in diagnostic evaluation and in psychotherapy...

: "How do people like me recover? How do they get well, stay well and get on with their lives?" The psychiatrist promised to return to their next appointment with some information. On her next visit, her doctor admitted that while there was a lot of information on medications and treatment programs, there was very little information on the subject of recovery.

Mary Ellen set out to talk to people who had recovered to ask them what helps. With the aid of a vocational rehabilitation counselor, she received the support she needed to create a survey and administer it to 125 volunteers.
What she found out about wellness and recovery, she felt she had to share which lead to her first book The Depression Workbook: A Guide for Living with Depression and Manic Depression. Since then she has written many books, traveled around the world training people to help others and themselves, conducted much additional original research, developed the Wellness & Recovery Action Plan (WRAP).

In 2005, Copeland's work lead to the creation of the non-profit the Copeland Center for Wellness and Recovery

Copeland Center for Wellness and Recovery

The Copeland Center for Wellness and Recovery is a not-for-profit organization that provides training, consulting and activities to enhance wellness and recovery of individuals, groups, care providers, organizations, and systems. The Copeland Center provides training in the Wellness Recovery Action...

which continues her work through trainings around the world.

Author

Copeland is author of Wellness Recovery Action Plan, The Depression Workbook: A Guide for Living with Depression and Manic Depression, Living Without Depression and Manic Depression, The Loneliness Workbook, The Worry Control Workbook, Winning Against Relapse, Healing the Trauma of Abuse (co-authored with Maxine Harris), Recovering from Depression: A Workbook for Teens, A WRAP Workbook for Kids, The WRAP Story, Fibromyalgia and Chronic Myofascial Pain (co-authored with Devin Starlanyl) and more. In addition, Copeland has co-authored Community Links: Pathways to Reconnection and Recovery and WRAP and Peer Support with Shery Mead.

Copeland has also published many articles for magazines, professional journals, and the general public on a variety of subject related to wellness. Some of her pamphlets can be found at Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration In addition, Dr. Copeland and her associates in partnership with Essential Learning have created a number of online learning courses.